@JayArgonaut That’s very interesting, thanks for that. I still haven’t quite understood how they managed to mess up the negative, though. But it’s gone, I understood that much.
Audio wouldn’t be a big issue I think, as you said.
Is there any way to tell when this print was made?
Lastly, is the 2008 restoration made using that old print the article mentions which is from the original negative? If so, it wouldn’t be all that bad I think (could be regraded?).
You’re welcome. There’s many a depressing story involving classic films, beyond the tragedy of Star Wars and Lucas, from the original negative of Citizen Kane being destroyed in a fire, to an MGM-Pathé executive who approved the disposal of an entire vault at United Artists that contained a wealth of James Bond material, to John Landis lamenting at Universal misplacing the original cuts of Animal House and The Blues Brothers.
I think we’d have to ask the seller to check the information on the cans to ascertain when the print was made. Perhaps others can weigh in with other ways to confirm this. The authors of the article actually were working on correcting the grading on the 2008 version but I have no idea how far they have progressed.